


A Brief History of Weeds

by Elpie (Horribibble)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flowers, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt/Comfort, Language of Flowers, M/M, Protective Dorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 16:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18525370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horribibble/pseuds/Elpie
Summary: "The earth laughs in flowers." - Ralph Waldo EmersonIn Tevinter, they call it Novis Floreat. In the South, they call it the Demon's Garden.And they kill mages for it.Dorian and Cullen, understandably, have very different opinions of flowers.





	A Brief History of Weeds

**Author's Note:**

> Jellysharkbat mentioned that there don't seem to be many Hanahaki fics in the fandom. 
> 
> So this happened.

Dorian is twelve years old when the first seeds bury themselves in the warm-wet floor of his lungs, a safe place to dispatch roots in desperate search of affection.

He thinks this boy is a wonder, so smart and sure, with a spark in his eye not unlike the ones that Dorian has mastered guiding between his fingers. But this boy is nowhere near so warm.

He sees the way Dorian’s eyes catch on him, the growing ache of his bones and the promise of greatness and nobility bred into them all. Dorian looks and sees an equal. This boy looks and sees a triumph.

The flowers know before Dorian does, in the swamp where they linger and swell. They creep up his throat and coat it with poison that nearly drags him, perfumed and young and so lovingly seeded, into the Void. 

But they craft in him an immunity.

They surround him on his sick bed as he rasps and shudders and _does not cry_ with his Father’s hand upon his brow—pale pink almost drained from the soft petals, red tattering the velvet flesh.

The servants gather up the blooms while he is taken off to bathe.

They will be useful, Aquinea smiles and kisses his forehead, the tip of his nose. Her golden eyes bite into his. “Few things are so poisonous as the oleander flower. You are an artist, my gentle heart.”

-

Dorian is in a drug-and-alcohol addled blur vaguely resembling early twenties when Gereon Alexius retrieves him from a bordello with all manner of trampled blossoms littering the floor and furniture.

There are _daisies_ in his hair, which scatter in the water when Alexius dumps him directly into the baths and he nearly drowns. Looks at them floating there and kind of wants to. They are _innocence_ , whole and untorn in foolish games of ‘loves me not.’

It’s always _loves me not._

Dorian is a skilled gardener, knows the proper meanings of all the flowers. Dorian is aware of how very often he is used, and is in no mood to cultivate toxins in his lungs.

He looks into Gereon Alexius’ handsome face and says, “You’ve got the wrong slut, _lector._ I’m not for rent.”

-

But he is, apparently, easily swayed by the notion of free room and board, and a new academic challenge to wrestle with.

Gereon Alexius is _fascinated_ by the flux and flow of time, the nature of it, and the distant promise of skipping through it like a child careening through endless perilous hallways.

He is a demanding mentor, a brilliant man, and the sort of father Dorian is beginning to wish he had. He leaves Dorian absolutely exhausted, and that’s when Felix appears, a gentle hand upon his arm and a plate full of food for energy.

Dorian is awed by him, the sunken depths of his eyes, and the lopsided stretch of his smile.

Felix does not want to be a distraction.

Felix wants to help where he can.

Felix wants to know _are you happy here, Dorian?_

And Dorian finds that, for a while, he is. Deliriously happy, constantly engaged and intrigued by the most tedious material, now that there are people to argue it with.

He looks at Felix and does not feel the brush of petals in his throat.

But he is loved, and he knows it.

This is good.

-

The problems begin when he starts taking his damnable walks.

They’ve come up against a logical wall, and tempers are running hot. The air and sunlight will do him good, Livia says, as if he is all of him a plant with a handsome face and an impressive moustache.

Her fingers tuck flyaway strands back into place.

It’s ridiculous, sentimental, all together too motherly.

And he appreciates it to no end when he runs into Rilienus.

Precious Rilienus.

Rilienus who would have said yes, but _why_.

 _Why_ when the lemon balm blooms its way up and into his lap. _Why_ when the servants peek in to see their fallen scion. _Why_ when he goes without food for an entire week, deprived even of the opportunity to hunger strike in favor of leaving him thin and desperate and _willing_.

At least _sympathy_ will not ruin him the way that _caution_ attempted to.

But it does not leave him an immunity.

-

During his imprisonment, one of those gawking servants slides a decorated vessel through a gap in the door. No words were exchanged, no explanation given.

He takes the poison with him, when he leaves, and wonders if they meant for him to avail himself of it.

-

The entirety of the south, it seems, has bent itself so far backwards to escape this fear of mages, that it has rounded its own asshole and kissed terror on the mouth.

They call it the Demon’s Garden, when flowers spill forth in torrents of blood—an offering to the demons lurking just beyond the veil. Dorian has heard it, too, from the mouths of southern mages.

 _They’ll promise you a crown,_ one says. _They’ll pluck the flowers from your lungs, and weave one for you, just like that. Like it never hurt to breathe at all._

Another sighs, as if the idea is _tempting. They’ll love you, they will. And it won’t hurt so bad. Can’t hurt as bad as_ that.

_It’s just trading one bad for another._

Because, in the south, they believe that _only mages_ can be heartsick.

-

One evening, short of coin and pride, Dorian makes a nest for himself in the soft grass of a copse of trees just beyond a little town and does his best to rest.

He drifts through the Fade, wandering aimlessly on feet exhausted even in dreams, until he stands before a familiar form. It is not any one face, but the promise of comfort. The idea of Love.

Its body fluctuates as it speaks, and Dorian thinks, ‘ _Pretty’_ but so is bloody oleander.

 _You’ve felt it,_ says Desire. _You’ve felt it in your belly and your lungs and your throat and even now you keep it in your pocket so you don’t forget._

Dorian smiles.

 _You never need to feel that way again._ It says with soft lips and ever-faintly crooked teeth. **_I_ ** _will love you._

“ _Will_ you?”

_I will love you so much, and you will breathe again._

“I’m breathing now.” Dorian says, and ever-so-softly blows a soft gust of powdered oleander into its face.

-

Dorian very nearly extends the same to the local contingent of Templars when he realizes that the treatment in the south—

The “ _treatment_ ” in the south—

Is the Rite of Tranquility.

Nothing discourages a growing garden like scorching the cursed earth.

-

It’s almost gratifying to hear that a war has begun, and that he must skirt the villages rising stubbornly from the landscape, until the first time he calls upon his dueling skills to bludgeon a peckish wolf.

His feet are sore, and his back is sore, and his pride is sore, and in the Fade the demons who have begun to fear him take to whispering the horrible fates of thousands of poor seeded _bastards_ who had the great misfortune of falling in love somewhere _cold._

He sleeps in storms of flower petals until, Redcliffe at his back and the ramparts of Skyhold towering above him, he sets the lot of them ablaze.

“The opposite of hatred is knowledge.” He says, and something like Pride laughs in the distance.

He knows exactly which finger to extend.

-

Dorian realizes that the Commander has become a _friend_ instead of a pleasant fantasy with the bemused startlement of a man falling down a long set of stairs.

The man _smiles_ when he sees him, lifts a gauntleted hand in greeting, regardless of who else may lay claim to his attention. It’s startling to realize that someone in this frigid waste is regularly pleased to see him.

 

He seeks him out in the slow-growing courtyard to play chess, and has even begun poking his head in at Dorian’s little nook in the library now and then.

The feeling of it is warm and soft and open in Dorian’s chest and belly, like Felix. Like fresh grass and cool sea breezes. Like someone here would notice if he went missing, like they might come to fetch him and guide him back.

He is so very busy appreciating the sensation of having a friend in someone so noble and _southern_ that the locked door seems a mere _inconvenience_. Word around the fortress has it that the Commander is nursing a chest cold, and argues bitterly with the healers about it.

But Dorian is not a healer. He is a _friend._ With _soup._

The spark of energy that escapes his fingertips is a near-reflex as he barges in—

And nearly slips on flower petals.

-

Cullen Rutherford, warrior proud and true, Commander of the Inquisition’s forces, is huddled at the bottom of the ladder to his private quarters, rasping desperately with his knees against his chest.

Nothing is as it should be.

There is blood on his chin and hands, and the wretched red-and-gold fireworks display spattered across the floor: the Demon’s Garden, a _mage_ affliction. It had begun as a simple cough—a ticklish space in his chest forcing his lungs to flutter and his throat to click.

Then a cool, sliding sensation mingled with the blood at the bottom of his throat and something horribly _sharp_ began to saw against his insides. A cloying sweetness began to build and choke him until he couldn’t help but hack up a clear ooze ablaze with red, gold, and white.

So he sits and he shakes and he tries desperately not to think of his little prison in the Hold, of the creeping tendrils of blood magic, of the cries of his brothers and sisters. He has done enough in the name of vengeance to merit this.

He cannot tell himself that they were wrong.

...But he cannot be made Tranquil.

-

Dorian picks his way very carefully across the floor, soup set aside on the desk, and crouches down to examine the mess at Cullen’s feet as if he were reading cast bones or tea leaves.

Cullen jerks when he laughs, “Aloe and honeysuckle. I’m a bit jealous, Commander.”

And then there is a hand, strong and impossibly tight, grasping his arm. Cullen’s eyes are bloodshot and panicked. “Please,” He says. “Please. I don’t understand this.”

Dorian remembers, abruptly, why it is that he hates the south so very much.

“I can help you with this, of course. But you’ll need to eat first. You haven’t in several days.”

“Can’t.” Cullen rasps, lungs seizing up as if eager to help demonstrate.

But then Dorian’s hand is there, against the thin fabric of his shirt. A cool sensation spreads from there, and the horrible grinding sensation abates. Cullen stares, confused and no little bit concerned.

Has he been changed, somehow?

“Aloe and honeysuckle.” Dorian huffs. “What a strange combination.”

-

A certain eternally envious part of Dorian is tempted to give Cullen the speech so often rattled off back home just before a description of the Deadheading procedure. That these flowers are a lie his body tells him, a temptation toward foolishness.

Love was not worth suffocating for.

Nothing that hurt you could ever be so worthy.

Except perhaps duty.

Or breeding.

Or social image.

Dorian could destroy so much with an unkind word, but he doesn’t _want_ to.

He reaches out, very gently, to rest his fingers on Cullen’s clenched fist and he says what he _wishes_ someone had told him _years_ ago. He feels the phantom of blood and oleander and lemon balm and he says, “You love someone so deeply that your body is growing a garden for them. What you do with those flowers is _your choice._ ”

-

Cullen’s hands shake, but he manages to eat enough of the soup to satisfy Dorian’s stern attentions, and asks very softly what’s so funny about aloe and honeysuckle.

Dorian smiles, just a little, at the other man’s genuine defensiveness of the garden in his gut. “Aloe is for healing, protection, and affection. It is often used to treat burns. Honeysuckle speaks to the bonds of love.” He reaches out to pluck a reasonably clean gold-white trumpet from Cullen’s lap and makes a show of extracting the nectar. “It’s sweet.”

And Cullen laughs until he starts to cry.

-

Before the treatment can take place, there is a detoxification routine meant to soothe the hurt and prepare the body for extraction. It involves a surprising amount of delicate touching, and a regrettable quantity of herbal tonic that tastes like warmed regret with a hint of honey and lemon.

Dorian, in the interim, digs up a truly impressive array of bottles and tins to store his garden’s get. Some, he saves for medicine. Some, he saves for Cullen to look at and remember. And some, he jokes, he may have to steal away, for aloe is lovely on the skin. 

As this goes on, Cullen feels less and less inclined to lock the door, to hide in his loft staring mournfully at the sky. He looks forward to Dorian’s newly-minted knock, and smiles on his arrival again.

It is good to see him, always.

He is always on time.

-

“You’ll be ready, soon. The color is already back in your cheeks, and your breathing is nearly smooth.” Dorian says.

“It’s as if the flowers were gone already.” Cullen grins, just a bit crooked and terribly bright.

“Not just yet. We still have cause to worry.”

Cullen’s smile fades. “I know. I can’t believe I’ve been so foolish. I hurt so many people in _ignorance._ I shouldn’t treat this lightly. For a while, it seemed fitting that being unloveable would be thing that killed me.”

And Dorian—he understands this the way he might an echo from deep inside a cave. Further down, further away from the light.

One always thinks of the past as a graveyard strewn with lillies.

He knows enough, by now. He has heard enough to understand how kind Cullen has not _always_ been, but has become through continuous effort. He thinks of the effort of loving repeatedly after defeat.

He places his hand to Cullen’s arm just below the shoulder and says, very softly, “They don’t know you love them.”

-

And Cullen, weak from coughing and serrated edges cutting and soothing his lungs and throat from the inside—Cullen, who hasn’t had a withdrawal headache in some time because _his body was busy killing him this way_ —slips.

He looks into the impossible grey of Dorian’s eyes and asks, “ _Don’t_ you?”

And suddenly, Dorian feels as if some hundred thousand flowers have grown and caught fire in his chest.

It is a firm hand holding him upright.

It is a voice lifted in hope, leading the hymn.

It is a chessboard dappled with sunlight, pieces occasionally palmed and hidden under coy smiles.

It is _magnificent._

-

And so Dorian kisses him with the rapidly fading scent of oleander and lemon balm on his breath.

And so Dorian tells him, laughing and gasping and reuniting their lips over and over: “Tonight will be horrible. You’ll spend it digging up an entire garden.”

“It’s yours!” Cullen laughs. “It’s all for you.”

“The magic will make it easier.”

“I believe you. I do.”

“And after that it will be better.”

“Because you love me.”

“Because we love _each other._ ”

 

**Author's Note:**

> The image embedded in the story is from a lovely article on how to use honeysuckle to make a lovely syrup for soda. 
> 
> I really wish I had a bunch of it nearby! For those of you who do, the post is [here.](http://www.adailysomething.com/2015/05/recipe-welcome-summer-with-perfectly.html)
> 
> If you'd like to talk more about Dragon Age, you can find me on tumblr at Elpiething, PF at Elpie, or one of the Discord chats I scream a lot in. 
> 
> For Dragon Age overall (mostly slash) check out [The Assquisition.](https://discord.gg/JktrHUG)
> 
> For Cullrian specifically, take a look at [The Herald's Rest.](https://discord.gg/V8zRFfW)


End file.
